Chapter 2
After she left, I immediately went into Adeline’s study.
Her bookshelves were filled with my photos, and on the balcony, there was a large portrait she painted of me. Even the study’s layout was designed according to my taste.
Anyone would think Adeline was deeply in love with me.
But only I knew there was a folder on her computer with a password I didn’t know.
Adeline once drunkenly told me it was the most precious thing in her life, her everything. I thought it was her research, so I didn’t pay much attention.
Now it seems things aren’t as I thought.
I hesitantly entered Adeline’s phone password, and to my surprise, it opened the file.
The phone password with no special meaning was another person’s birthday.
The file was full of photos of someone named Nash, all taken by Adeline. The camera doesn’t lie; every photo told me Adeline deeply loved him.
The ridiculous part was Adeline once told me she didn’t know photography.
They traveled together, read together, and even raised a cat together.
But Adeline told me she was allergic to cat hair, so I even gave away my eight-year-old cat.
In the photos, Adeline’s eyes were cautious, passionate yet timid, something I’d never seen.
With me, she was always composed and serious; I thought it was just her personality.
But it was because she didn’t love me.
The last page was a letter she wrote to Nash.
[Finn, I finally found someone with a physical condition like yours. He thinks I love him and eagerly tests drugs for me!]
[He doesn’t know his heart has deteriorated. He volunteered to test drugs for me and got cancer. But that’s not my fault; he volunteered!]
I forced my eyes open, stubbornly refusing to let tears fall.
Turns out, the one she truly wanted to spend her life with wasn’t me. In her heart, I was just an experiment.
What I thought was a chance meeting, falling in love, was all her deliberate arrangement.
All because my condition was similar to Nash’s; she was using me.
I shut down the computer and returned to the room, finally crying out loud when I collapsed onto the bed.
I couldn’t stop recalling the time I nearly died from a heart attack.
I took the pills Adeline gave me, and soon after, the pain was unbearable, and I vomited blood.
Terrified, I called Adeline, but she never answered.
Naively, I thought she was busy. In the hospital room, I nearly bled to death.
Adeline comforted me, saying she’d always be by my side, ensuring nothing would happen to me.
I was deeply moved but also felt guilty, thinking my carelessness let her down.
So even when doctors told me my body couldn’t handle drug testing, risking a heart attack, I still agreed to try for her.
But little did I know, what I thought was redemption and deep love were all her manipulation.
The chest pain was so intense I could hardly breathe, a side effect of long-term drug testing for Adeline.
I never told her, afraid she’d worry.
Maybe she knew I was tormented every night but just didn’t care.
Every moment with Adeline flashed in my mind.
For seven years, I tested drugs for her, facing life and death countless times.
Every time, she’d do everything to save me.
Her fear of losing me was real.
But only because without me, there wouldn’t be someone like Nash to test drugs for him.
I trembled as I picked up my phone to check Adeline’s financial records over the years.
She had a large sum saved in a Swiss bank and bought many insurance policies.
But all were in the name of Nash.